Searching Questions.

How many of us have been in situations that force us to confront searching and fundamental questions about ourselves? The following is one that happened to me when I was nineteen, going on twenty.

I was doing a temporary job labouring in a warehouse that stored and distributed camping equipment. It was sited on an old WWII bomber repair station that had been turned over to use as an industrial and trading estate. We had two buildings. The top shed was purpose-built and used to store dry goods like tents, chairs and camp beds. The bottom shed was an old bomber hangar built to accomodate the likes of Lancasters, which gives an idea of its size. That one was used to store butane gas. A mountain of boxes lined one side of the hangar, each containing thirty six 1lb cartridges. The bigger 4lb and 7lb containers were on the other side.

We were all working in the top shed one day, but I had some reason to go down to the bottom one. I saw a curious glow on the roof at the far end, and went to investigate. It was being caused by a large pile of waste material that had somehow caught alight, and the fire was spreading rapidly towards the stack of boxes. Bear in mind that this was a place where lighting a match was grounds for instant dismissal, so seeing a fire that size and that close to the butane was a bit of a shock. I set off the fire alarm immediately, and then considered what I should do next.

For reasons that I’ll come to later, I made for the hose reel, unwound the hose, and began playing the water onto the fire. I was soon joined by my pal Paddy Connolly, who muttered something indecipherable in his best Limerick accent. (I later learned that everybody else had raced off across the airfield upon hearing the fire alarm!) I gave him the hose and told him to carry on pushing the fire away from the butane. I rushed to collect every extinguisher I could find, and then used them to play water onto the sides of the boxes to keep them cool. I observed that they weren’t getting wet; it appeared they were hot enough for the water to evaporate on contact.

Eventually, the job was done. The fire was completely out, but we carried on soaking the ashes to be sure. At that point, three fire tenders arrived to deal with the incident... I looked at my watch and realised that the exercise had taken fifty minutes. It felt like five. How perceptions of time change when you’re having fun!

So then I reflected on two questions to which I wanted honest answers. The first was how I had truly felt about being in danger of imminent death. The second concerned whether what I had done was brave, stupid, or something else entirely.

I thought about how I’d felt when the fire was within six feet of the stack, and the water hitting them was evaporating. I genuinely believed at that moment that we must have been getting close to the critical point where the butane would blow. The prospect of imminent death was very real in my mind, and I remember feeling quite accepting of it. It was going to happen one day anyway, so what difference did it make whether it was today or another day. What terrified me was the prospect of having burning butane searing my face. I remember envying Paddy, because he was facing away from the stack; I was looking straight at it. I kept telling myself ‘It’s OK. If it blows, you’ll be killed instantly. This place will go up like the grandfather of all bombs.’ I felt better, and carried on.

The second question was a little more complex. I made myself re-live the moment when I’d first discovered the fire. Breaking the glass in the fire alarm was a natural instinctive reaction, but then I had to make a decision. A swift appraisal of the situation showed me I had four options. One was to leave the building by the nearest exit, but that was right next to the fire. Opening that door would probably have created a fire storm that would have projected the expanded flames onto the stack of butane almost instantaneously. The second option was to go to the other end of the hangar and get out that way. I saw how far it was to that end, and remembered that the sliding doors there were hardly ever opened. They were very stiff, and took two men to open them comfortably. There was a chance I wouldn’t have enough time to do that before the explosion happened. The third option was to return to the top shed and get out that way, but I knew that the two sheds were connected by a long, narrow corridor. If the gas blew, it would send a fireball through there that would burn me alive. The fourth option was to fight the fire without delay. I decided it was the one that offered me the best chance of survival. The decision was made in seconds, and I’m sure there was a big chunk of instinct involved.

So, neither bravery nor stupidity, just a pragmatic choice. No medals for Jeffrey this time. But, of course, the real medal was in learning something about myself – what I was really afraid of, and what capacity I had for dealing with a difficult moment. All good stuff, and greatly recommended.